For months after Redondo Beach unveiled a new King Harbor entry fountain, the city scrambled to ease concerns from the utility company that operates high-voltage power lines overhead.

Worried that the fountain’s misting function could malfunction and pose safety risks, Southern California Edison asked the city to keep the structure dry until it could demonstrate that the water would automatically shut off in the event of a storm.

Redondo Beach leaders say that concern is now behind them, as they’ve assured Edison the fountain has sensors that would cut off the water during rains and high winds.

But the structure remains dry more than a year after it was unveiled during a grand-opening celebration – with the mist still the missing piece of a $1 million improvement project that also includes new lighting and landscaping.

“It’s been way too long,” City Manager Bill Workman said. “I’m not happy we haven’t been able to turn the water back on.”

After Redondo Beach in late 2008 unveiled the improvements at Catalina Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway, Edison’s legal department wrote a letter to the city to confirm that the mist would remain off until both sides reached a “mutually agreeable decision.”

Steve Huang, the city’s engineering director, said Redondo and its consultants have since satisfied the safety concerns.

But more recently, both sides have been hung up on an agreement that addresses the entry feature’s apparent encroachment into a utility right-of-way.

“Basically, we bisect their property line by about three feet so it’s become a legal issue,” Huang said.

“I wouldn’t call this a property dispute,” said Scott Gobble, Edison’s regional manager for public affairs. “Whenever you’re dealing with a public utility company and its land, it’s a process.”

Workman said the city set out to construct the fountain and its landscaping in such a way that Edison trucks would be able to access the site to work on the power lines.

When the plans were drawn up, he said, the city was aware of the fact that a small portion of the improvements would cross an old county right-of-way. But Workman said city engineers believed that property had been dedicated to the city, not Edison, as they later discovered.

Correspondence between Redondo Beach and the utility dating to the fall of 2008 indicates both sides had a landscaping agreement in place, but that there were questions concerning the right-of-way. Nonetheless, construction moved forward and eventually wrapped up that December.

On Friday, Workman said both sides are close to a resolution on the property issue.

“We’re engaged in discussions with Edison and we’re just about there with our agreement,” he said.

But a signed deal with the company might not be a guarantee that the fountain will function as officials initially thought it would.

Considering the push to conserve water and the city’s budget constraints, Workman indicated the mist might remain off even longer.

“We’re well aware of what the reality is and what the perception may be,” he said. “It will be a final choice of the City Council.”

Mayor Mike Gin, for one, said he’s rethinking the way the city uses water.

In November, Gin sent Gobble a letter requesting permission to operate the lights and mist, saying the city wanted “the ability to enjoy the full drama of the entrance piece” during the holiday season.

Now he’s not sure.

“Thinking a little bit further, I’m much more conservation-minded now,” he said last week.

And asked whether he wished the city had spent its money differently, Gin said the improvements were made with “restricted funds,” and that he believes the work still makes a statement. (Workman said the city did not use general fund money, but rather grants and transportation dollars.)

“We wanted to create something that was a beautiful art piece for King Harbor, and certainly the water would have been nice,” Gin said, “but I think, frankly, it’s great without (it).”

It’s been more than three years since city leaders settled on a plan to beautify a barren patch of land beneath the big blue-and-white King Harbor sign.

A former council weighed several designs in December 2006 – including one controversial proposal for a 4-inch-deep lagoon by the roadside – before finally choosing the current abstract sea-themed design.

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